


Misericorde

by hexnhart



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Ghosts, M/M, Songfic, after S2 finale, inspired by Karliene - Wuthering Heights, not proof-read, tearwringer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4055899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexnhart/pseuds/hexnhart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A misericorde is a long, narrow knife, used in medieval times to deliver the death stroke (the mercy stroke, hence the name of the blade, derived from the Latin misericordia, "act of mercy") to a seriously wounded knight.<br/>*<br/>Captain Flint is visited by an apparition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misericorde

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hardun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hardun/gifts).



Soft knocking on the window frame – three rapid scrabbling sounds between sleeping and waking. A branch caught against the side of the house by a breeze. But hush, here it is again, more insistent this time.

James Flint rose grudgingly, loath to quit the relative comfort of his cot, and walked over to the window. It only took a couple steps, the room being small. He preferred it that way – safer, cheaper, no shadows dancing in the far corner.  
At this time of night anyone could come a-knocking – a messenger, one of his men who’d landed himself in some drunken predicament, a stray bird. Flint threw back the ratty curtain.

‘Lieutenant, it is rather cold out here.’ – Miranda smiled at him through the grubby glass, pendulums of amber earrings swaying to follow the gentle inclination of her head. She was as he’d remembered her before the tropical sun and labour streaked the woman’s face with premature wrinkles. She was beautiful, only – it wasn’t really Lady Hamilton.

‘You are dead. Go to Hell.’ – it was awfully difficult to say the words and Flint leant against the window frame as if physically exhausted. He hoped Miranda, wherever her fiercely honest soul abided, could not hear him. The spectre on the other side of the glass remained unfazed, but the knock repeated despite the apparition not moving its hand.

When Flint raised his gaze from where he was chasing black spots in his vision along the floor, Thomas was calmly studying him, palm pressed against the glass, misting it.

‘Go… God, please, leave me be.’ - James choked, rooted to the spot. The Devil could take pleasing forms, but this was cruel even for him.

‘I thought as much.’- a frown, soft and ponderous. - ‘Still your old cautious self.’  
Thomas tapped his fingers on the window lightly. - ‘A storm is coming. Please, let me in.’

‘No.’ – Flint resolved to draw the curtain, but could not will himself to move, fisting the off-white fabric.

‘It is cold.’

Flint was about to protest, the climate in the Bahamas being anything but that, yet as he leant closer to the casement a sweet graveyard chill washed over him. Thomas was wearing his hospital garb – a gown of coarse cloth with leather straps for restraining the hands behind the wearer’s back. The right sleeve was torn, revealing a forearm puckered with gooseflesh. With no external light source, the apparition seemed to emit a glow of its own, or maybe the moon finally made her way over the horizon and made the real, living Thomas Hamilton look ghostly pale.

‘Please, James.’

In answer to the plea Flint shook his head ruefully, loose hair obscuring his view of Thomas before he hastily brushed it away.

‘You are dead. You committed suicide in Bethlem Royal Hospital ten years ago.’

‘Who told you this?’ – the spirit grew agitated. – ‘Who. Told. You.’

‘I do not remember.’ – the knowledge was too painful at the time to check the legitimacy of its source, and afterwards… What more was there to be done? Flint lowered his eyes guiltily. To him Thomas did look older, rougher around the edges, as if these past ten years really happened.

Rain began to drum on the window, a slow execution beat, water the colour of Thomas’ weary eyes.

‘Let me in.’

It wasn’t the tropical downpour, when the whole island holds its breath lest it is washed away. It was an English rain: full-bodies droplets sploshed against the roofs, the greenery, the pavements with loud insistency. The falling water seemed to be whispering, but Flint couldn’t make out the words.

‘I can tempt you, if you so wish.’ – those were the words in the rain, Thomas’ eloquence echoed by the water. – ‘Tell you, how your pain will be eased should you let me in, how all wrongs will become meaningless. We will build anew according to our plans. All will be well. I could do that, but you are much too perceptive to fall for that. For you it is crucial to let me in of your own accord, to maintain that degree of independence.’

Flint could not disbelieve the reasoning, in which there was so much of the ingenious Lord Hamilton he used to know. No spirit, no fiend could emulate it so perfectly, with such tender acceptance. Perhaps, he was too far gone into misery to see hope when it was staring him in the face.

The decision felt easy, like it had been made ages ago. And perhaps it had. The captain forced the latch up, for the first time in many years thinking of himself as James McGraw. It felt good.

McGraw lifted the latch jerkily, throwing the window open to the rain and sultry night wind, surging to where Thomas was standing outside.

Had been standing and was standing no more.

Raindrops plastered the man’s shirt to his skin, as he turned this way and that, looking frantically for the apparition. But there were only the streaked walls of grey water, through which the outlines of buildings stood forth blearily, their confines making the world small. There wasn’t even a cackling demon to drag his soul to the abyss. No dizzying last voyage.

He stood there, wondering, if Thomas saw his apparition at the barred window of his cell, smiling ruefully, begging to be let in.


End file.
